Spotlight: French President unveils urgent measures to lower long-running rise in unemployment

French President Francois Hollande on Monday raised the curtain on his fresh roadmap to bring down unemployment rate, mainly by adding millions of euros in improving training and offering incentives to encourage recruitment.

Hollande, already in a fierce battle to overcome joblessness challenge to maintain his post at the Elysee Palace, announced a training program for 500,000 jobseekers.

"The challenge is to seize new opportunities related to expanding sectors but also to traditional ones," Hollande said, adding the government pledged 1 billion euros (1.09 billion U.S. dollar) to finance the vocational training schemes.

Playing his last card to silence critics over his broken promises to reverse rampant unemployment, Hollande also unveiled additional subsidies for small companies, worth 2,000 euros per year to hire more workers.

Boosting apprenticeships was among the devices listed by the Socialist leader to absorb millions of people without works, arguing it would help to create 1,000 jobs by 2017.

Hollande said that new jobs creation measures would cost the state 2 billion euros and there would be no new taxes of any kind.

The fresh tools to inject dynamism into the labor market aimed to "redefine our economic and social model." according to the French head of state.

In a New Year greetings message to business leaders, Hollande declared "an economic and social state emergency" following "an uncertain economic climate and persistent unemployment".

"The growth is still too weak to reduce unemployment. We must act to make growth more robust and job creation more abundant," Hollande said, stressing the necessity to improve training so that "the greatest number (of jobseekers) can benefit from the opportunities provided by new technologies."

In November's unemployment data, the Labor Ministry said jobless claims decreased by 0.4 percent due to a decline among young people without work.

According to the national statistical authority, Insee, France hit 18-year high unemployment rate during the third quarter of 2015 with unemployment rate stood at 10.2 percent, or 2.941 million jobless claims registered over the period.

Since the Socialists took power in 2012, about 650,000 additional unemployed people have been numbered despite the government's plans of sponsored contracts and low tax payroll, according to media reports.

Dogged by feeble economic stock, Hollande has repeatedly said he would not stay at the Elysee if he would not transform unemployment promises to concrete doings.

Speaking to Radio Classique, Jean-Christohe Lagarde, president of centrist party Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) denounced "an absurd operation, a quite unworthy doctoring of unemployment figures".

"As usual, Hollande made announcement of figures that have no links with reality," he said.

In the right wing, the National Front said with the new measures, Hollande eyed to preserve his place at the Elysee Palace rather than creating real job opportunities.

"The employment plan presented this morning by François Hollande is nothing but a candidature for the 2017 presidential election. He made announcement for election purpose, but no concrete measures are proposed to stimulate innovative industries and jobs," the far-right party said in a statement.

The head of the Medef employers association, Pierre Gattaz, welcomed measures that, according to him, were "in the right direction", but regretted less effort to reform labor contracts and scheme of hiring bonuses.

An Odoxa poll for iTele news channel showed 81 percent of respondents believed that Hollande would lose his bet to reverse the joblessness trend by 2017, with 77 percent of them said the new measures to revive labor market would not bring down the unemployment rate. ( 1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollar) Enditem